A single megarailway might soon connect the land of Wawa to In-N-Out country. The biggest freight railroad in the country, Union Pacific, and fellow rail giant Norfolk Southern confirmed reports yesterday that they are in advanced talks to form America’s first ocean-to-ocean railway.

Union Pacific says fusing into a $200 billion behemoth would make shipping goods between the Eastern and Western US more efficient, since they wouldn’t have to be transferred between tracks run by different companies.

But a deal would likely face regulatory hurdles as well as potential opposition from labor unions and companies that send their wares by rail, who are concerned that it would diminish competition and push up freight prices.

Gilded Age throwback

The prospect of continent-spanning freight tracks hearkens back to the ambitions of early 20th century railway magnates in the era when rail was the go-to method for shipping goods cross-country.

Total freight track mileage peaked in 1916, after which trucking eroded much of rail’s market share and the industry consolidated around a handful of giants:

• Union Pacific and Warren Buffett-owned BNSF operate tracks west of Chicago, while Norfolk Southern and CSX dominate in the Eastern US.
• Just like people in their 30s feeling pressure from seeing their friends get married, BNSF and CSX are reportedly considering a merger in order to compete with a combined Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern.

Analysts say East-West mergers could give the industry a much-needed boost as it struggles with fluctuating freight volumes, rising costs, and reliability issues.

But the deal could be derailed…by the Surface Transportation Board (STB), the federal agency in charge of approving it. It previously opposed rail consolidation unless it enhances competition, but STB’s current stance on the matter is unclear. In any case, it will likely be a lengthy process. Approval of the most recent merger in 2023 took almost 17 months.—SK

UnitedHealth confirmed it’s being investigated. The healthcare giant said in a securities filing that it’s cooperating with the Justice Department in civil and criminal investigations following recent reports from the Wall Street Journal that the DOJ was looking into the company’s Medicare billing practices. WSJ reported that UnitedHealth had added unnecessary diagnoses to Medicare patients’ records that increased payments. It’s the latest setback for a company that ousted its CEO in May after its stock price cratered.

TikTok could go dark in the US, commerce secretary warns. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said yesterday that TikTok will be banned in the US if China does not agree to cede control of the app to an American majority owner by a Sept. 17 deadline. “We’ve made the decision. You can’t have Chinese control and have something on 100 million American phones,” Lutnick told CNBC. President Trump has extended the deadline for a deal three times since taking office in January. CNBC reported that it’s unclear where talks currently stand, though Trump said in June that there was a group of “very wealthy people” ready to buy the app.

Hulk Hogan died at 71. The Hall of Fame wrestler died of cardiac arrest yesterday about two months after undergoing spinal fusion surgery. Considered the greatest professional wrestler of all time, Hogan, whose real name was Terry Bollea, signed with the WWE (then the WWF) in 1983, going on to win six championships. He also had a prolific acting career, playing the role of “Thunderlips” in Rocky III and appearing as himself in countless films and TV shows. In 2015, he was briefly dropped by WWE following reports that he had used racial slurs in a leaked sex tape. A year later, he was awarded $115 million after suing Gawker Media, which had published a snippet of the leaked tape, for invasion of privacy. Hogan also spoke at the 2024 Republican National Convention, where he endorsed President Trump before ripping his shirt off.—AE

As Jeff Goldblum once said in Jurassic Park: “Life finds a way,” and so do China’s AI demands. At least $1 billion worth of cutting-edge semiconductors have been smuggled into China since President Trump blocked Nvidia chip sales to the country in April, the Financial Times reported yesterday.

According to the FT:

• The latest Nvidia processors are being sold in China, where some distributors openly advertise on social media. It’s “like a seafood market,” one seller said.
• Some crates in the online videos carry the logos of Supermicro, Dell, or Asus, which package Nvidia chips into data-center-ready racks. There’s nothing to suggest these companies were aware of this.
• Eight-chip racks of the black market’s most popular semiconductor, Nvidia’s B200, are going for $419,000 to $489,000—a 50% markup on average US prices.

But Nvidia said it won’t help China’s tech advance, telling CNBC that making data centers with smuggled parts is “a losing proposition, both technically and economically.”

How are they getting there? Possibly through southeast Asia. The US has started planning bigger restrictions on chip exports to Thailand and Malaysia over these suspicions.

Looking ahead…Nvidia got the initial go-ahead to resume selling its less-powerful H20 chip to China, CEO Jensen Huang announced last week. While this could somewhat weaken the black market, “there will always be demand for the most cutting-edge stuff,” one distributor told FT.—ML

American Eagle is brute-forcing its denim back into your shopping cart. The retailer’s new campaign with Hollywood “It Girl” Sydney Sweeney rolled out this week, immediately sending the company’s stock up as retail investors latched on. Details of the deal weren’t disclosed, but it is reportedly American Eagle’s most expensive campaign to date.

The campaign, called “Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans,” features photos of the Euphoria actress in both men’s and women’s jeans on a 20-story, 3D billboard in Times Square and towering ads wrapping the Las Vegas Sphere. You can also find Sweeney in various denim looks via AI Snapchat lenses that let you virtually try on jeans and paid ads on BeReal.

• The line includes a limited-edition denim jacket and a pair of jeans designed by Sweeney and her stylist, with profits going to Crisis Text Line.
• American Eagle hopes the big swing will capture the back-to-school shoppers after its revenue dropped 5% last quarter.

Don’t call it a meme stock. American Eagle stock jumped 19% in premarket trading yesterday following the Sweeney announcement, though it ended the day only up about 4%. And sure, Redditors were talking about the campaign, but this isn’t the first time Sweeney’s presence almost instantly boosted a brand. Last month, the actress’ Dr. Squatch campaign helped secure the company’s sale to Unilever.—MM

Apparently, curriculum makers do not think anything written in the last 60 years is worth teaching in classrooms, but that’s probably because they haven’t yet read Rebels: City of Indra: The Story of Lex and Livia by Kendall and Kylie Jenner.

Per a survey of 4,000 teachers, the 10 most popular books taught in US classrooms today were all published more than 60 years ago. And the list hardly changes over time: Six of the 10 titles (marked in bold below) were also among the most popular in 1989.

1. Romeo and Juliet
2. The Great Gatsby
3. The Crucible
4. Macbeth
5. Of Mice and Men
6. To Kill a Mockingbird
7. Night
8. Hamlet
9. Fahrenheit 451
10. Frankenstein

Many teachers say they’d prefer to assign new books but are censored by school districts, local governments, and parents. One of the most-censored books, per the survey, is The Handmaid’s Tale.—AE

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